


Folie à Deux

by idiotbrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Alternate Universe, Confrontations, Dubcon and allusions to past noncon, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Light Bondage, M/M, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, light sadomasochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiotbrothers/pseuds/idiotbrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only one of them can get into Heaven. Sam doesn't think either of them belongs there, but, as tends to be the case in his life, the decision isn't really up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folie à Deux

"Wait a second," Sam gasped out, feeling like his brain was being twisted in his skull as a certain memory came careening at him out of his subconscious. "We're both already dead, aren't we."   
  
Dean stilled, panting and letting the First Blade, which he'd had poised in front of Sam's eyes, clatter to the ground. "What?" He wheezed, looking like his heart had stopped. Which, again, was kind of redundant, because Sam remembered now, and Dean looked like he did too.   
  
They'd been driving to the scene of a murder they'd heard about on the news that morning, and, as they so often did nowadays, they'd started arguing about something insignificant, tempers grating against each other and voices shrill. Dean had taken his eyes off the road for a moment too long, and there had been a horrible screech of tires, a horn blaring deafeningly, Sam shouting as he reached for the wheel. There was nothing to recall past that point.   
  
Sam turned to the strange, stoic man--the reaper, he now realized--for confirmation, and he nodded slowly. "You're right. You both died today, and this place is where complicated cases like yours come for further assessment, prior to the final judgment call. It's a new plan that we're trying out; Hell's been stuffed to near overcapacity for a while now, so the reapers and the Gatekeepers decided we'd propose this idea to the big guys, make sure we haven't been misfiling half the Earth's population for the past few decades. I'd have told you earlier, but that's against the rules."   
  
The murderous gleam had returned to Dean's eyes pretty soon after the man had started talking, jaw grinding and fists tightly clenched. "You--" He started, incensed, before struggling visibly with himself and saying in a more controlled voice, "Get us out of here right now, and I won't stick this blade through your neck."   
  
"It's no use, Dean," Sam said, frowning over at him, his throat still sore from when Dean had tried to choke him out minutes before. "We're dead. You know how these things work."   
  
"Are you kidding me right now, Sam? I know you have a death wish, but  _I'm_  not gonna let these sons of bitches boss us around. We're the  _Winchesters_ ; they can't just kill us off! Cas'll bust us out, or even fucking Crowley, for the right pr--"   
  
"Ah, I'm afraid your brother's right, love," the reaper interrupted, glancing at his fingernails disinterestedly. "Nobody can help you here, no matter how well-connected you are. You're no better off than the other bootlicking wretches who pass through this junction."  
  
With a single abrupt motion, Dean thrust the Blade into his gut, spreading a dark pool of glistening blood over his waistcoat. "Hmm," the reaper said, tilting his head jauntily at Dean and baring his crimson-stained teeth. "That," he enunciated, pointing at the hilt protruding from his ruined abdomen, "Is also against the rules."  
  
He snapped his fingers, and Dean was tied to a chair, lengths of coarse rope chafing around his ankles and wrists. "Your turn now," the reaper told Sam, pulling the Blade out of himself with a sickening squelching noise and offering it to him.   
  
"I'll pass," Sam said, feeling nauseated. Dean was shouting vicious expletives at them both, rattling the chair's legs as he strained against his ropes. Sam instantly flashed back to the demonic version of his brother, tied up much as he was now, using Sam's deepest fears against him. "That's not how the game is played," the reaper said, folding Sam's fingers around the hilt of the Blade. "Kill him," he said, indicating Dean with a slight bob of his chin.  
  
"Kill me, Sam," Dean said, laughing hysterically now. "You've never been able to do it, you sad bastard. The number of times I've come close to killing  _you_ , you can't imagine, Sam. Sam, you make me fucking crazy. What would it have taken for you to finally leave, huh? Always letting me do  _anything_  I wanted to you, taking it with your mouth shut. Never complaining for too long 'cause you don't like me when I'm angry. I wanna hear you now, want you to rip my guts out and step all over my corpse. All I ever wanted, but you just went along with me the whole time, swallowing my jizz, my insults. Tell me how worthless I am, Sammy.  _Tell me_."  
  
Sam brushed a hand over his stinging eyes, mouth tightening. "S-stop talking like that." Dean laughed again, eyes gleeful, grinning from ear to ear. "That's good, that's progress. You can let it out now; we've got nothing to lose." Sam shook his head, teeth gritted, and lowered the Blade to his side. "I'm not doing this." 

"If you don't," the reaper piped up, "He'll win by default. Is that what you want? For him to end up in Heaven without you, after all the sins he's committed? Be honest with yourself, kid. Posturing will get you nowhere in this place." 

"I'm not  _posturing_ ," Sam hissed, glaring through his tears. "What'll even happen if I stab him with this thing? We're both dead. What're you trying to pull?" The reaper sighed. "You're just crammed full of trust issues, aren't you. Not that I blame you, all things considered. In any case, I can't answer your question. It's--" 

" _Against the rules_ , yeah, I got that," Sam said impatiently, tossing the Blade over his shoulder like it was a cheap prop and walking up to Dean, gripping him by the collar of his shirt. "I'm gonna talk, and you're gonna listen to me without cutting me off, or else."

Dean spread his legs, knees nudging against Sam's inner thighs. "Fine by me," Dean said, arousal thick in his voice. Sam took a deep breath, fingers tightening in Dean's collar as he shuttered away his inhibitions.

"You never stopped lying to me," he muttered, eyes fixated on Dean's crooked smirk. "Since I was a little kid, all you've ever done is hide things from me. And it's got nothing to do with you wanting to  _protect_  me, nothing to do with your precious  _job_ ; it's because you don't trust me. Because I'm just your fucking subordinate, and you're the one who picks the music, calls the shots. I'm an  _infant_  and this is a  _dictatorship_  and you can fuck me even though it makes me sick, makes me think about Lucifer and Gadreel and how, in my memories, they're always wearing your face." 

Sam slotted himself between Dean's legs, felt how hard he was, and that made a sob catch in his throat. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Dean? How did we end up like this? I can't believe I'm--I've been scared of you for years, did you know that?" 

"Yeah," Dean growled, gaze dark. "I knew. But I didn't do anything about it. Remember when I was about to spit out an apology for everything that'd gone down after I let Gadreel in, and you stopped me? Remember later, when you were all,  _'You don't ever have to say that, not to me'_? Never wanted anything for yourself, did you, Sam."

Sam was breathing heavily now, on the verge of hyperventilation. "Of  _course_  I did. You know I did! You obviously know, or you wouldn't be able to sit here and say this kind of shit like it's nothing. Is it the air in here, or something? Are you really this depraved? Whatever it is, you need to stop before I go back over there and pick up that damned blade." 

"I'll do you one better," the reaper spoke again, holding something out towards Sam. It was a hammer, the head of it gleaming cruelly in the dim light. Sam took it dazedly, turned it over in his hands. "Fuck," Dean groaned, squirming in his seat. When Sam glanced up at him, there was a flush high on his cheeks. Sam straightened, stroking his left hand up and down the hammer's handle as he held Dean's heavy-lidded stare. Slowly, purposefully, Sam ground his knee into Dean's crotch, touching the cold iron of the hammer to the side of his skull as he did so.

"Dammit, Sam," Dean stuttered, pulling at the ropes and stretching towards him, sweat beading at his temples. "Such a--repressed...asshole," he added, hips jerking as Sam tipped the hammer back like he was figuring out where to aim. "Why do you say that?" Sam asked absently, wondering if Dean had fantasized about it when his eyes had been tinted black to match his darkest impulses, if he'd gripped the hammer and looked forward to pounding it into Sam's flesh, pockmarking him with weeping bruises and getting drunk on the heady scent of his blood. How ironic that would've been. 

"Tell me," Dean gasped, "What you  _want_." Sam gave the impassive reaper a sidelong glance before turning back to Dean and leaning down to crush their lips together, welcoming Dean's tongue into his mouth and moaning around it, fingers of his left hand making short work of the buttons on Dean's shirt. They broke apart to breathe, and Dean was grinning again, skin tinged pink to the tips of his ears. "I'm, ah, not the only depraved one around here. Am I, little brother." Sam's gut lurched, even as a trickle of need whispered through him.  _What's wrong with **me**? _ Not exactly a question he was unaccustomed to. 

"You told me you'd be honest with me this time around," Sam mumbled, thinking of himself saying  _You gotta give me the heads-up_ , of Dean standing knee-deep in bloodied corpses.

"Did you really believe I'd hold myself to that?" Dean asked, blunt as the edge of a worn knife, but at least the smile had dropped off his face, eyebrows furrowing with something unreadable. "No," Sam said truthfully, hefting the hammer once more, wondering.

"You gonna slam that into me or is that dick gonna have to do it for you?" Dean asked lightly, indicating the reaper with a twitch of his head. "Enjoying the show, huh? D'you get a lot of freaks like us in here or are we a rare commodity?" 

Sam didn't quite catch the reaper's answer, because he was busy mulling nostalgically over  _Well, I'm a freak too. I'm right there with you, all the way_. Simpler times. He could hardly remember what it was like for Dean to look at him like that, mingled reassurance and worry, without that sour underlying hint of exhausted frustration. Their relationship was still new and exciting back then, held together by fumbling sexual advances that they did their best not to talk about and the easy affection that threaded through every other conversation they had on the road. 

Sam slipped the hand holding the hammer under Dean's shirt, pressed the iron claw to Dean's heart with his fingers. "What if," Sam mused softly, trailing the index finger of his other hand down Dean's neck, "I carved your heart out right now? Held it in my hand while it was still beating?"  _Checked whether there's anything left in that spot between your ribs_. 

Dean shifted restlessly, moistened his lips. "Fucking do it already." Sam cocked an eyebrow, pulled the hammer out of Dean's shirt and dug the pointed edges of its claw into his own wrist. Dean made a startled little noise, but Sam paid him no mind, only pushing at it harder, applying force to it until he broke skin, bright droplets of crimson oozing out.

"Sam, what the hell are you--" 

"Not good enough," Sam said to himself, and slammed the hammer down on his wrist as hard as he could, shattering the bone. "Sam," Dean yelped, tipping his chair forward on its legs fruitlessly. "Make him stop," Dean said to the reaper, as Sam hit himself again, and again, sending shards of bone and splatters of blood flying. "I'm not here to mediate," the reaper said, sounding amused, "This is all on you guys."

Sam stopped hammering, holding his mangled arm up to the light and staring through it. "Shit," Dean said. "Okay, I've had enough of being tied up. Get me out of these ropes; it should be my turn now anyway, right?" Sam smeared his fingers over the blood coating his wrist, stuck them into his mouth experimentally, tasting iron and salt on his tongue. 

"Interesting," said the reaper, "I'll allow it." A second later, Dean was prying the hammer out of Sam's grip. "Hey," he said quietly, directing Sam's attention to him, "What's going on with you?" Sam felt his bottom lip begin to tremble. "It should look different," he said, using his blood-streaked thumb to trace Dean's cheek. "You should be able to look at it and know what I am."

Dean blinked, stilling the movement of Sam's hand with his own. He didn't say anything, so Sam continued, breath hitching. "I used to--When you were in Hell, and Ruby was--I. I used to slice into myself sometimes. Never enough to do permanent harm, but I just. I wanted to see. What the craving looked like inside me, I guess. It shouldn't look normal, but it does, and that's...It's not right." 

Dean nodded, pursed his mouth. "The stuff running through  _my_  veins is the same color as yours, as anybody else's. I was a demon, Sam. Me, Dean Winchester, bred to kill anything with a shred of inhumanity in it, my own brother included. And I was full-fledged; none of this halfling business you've got going for you. I still can't believe it."

Sam dragged the back of his hand over his nose. "Do you remember all of it?" Dean smiled wryly. "Yeah. Those things I said to you...I was mad at myself for speaking them out loud, after I'd turned back, but at the same time, I was kind of...pleased. Like I'd gotten something off my chest." Sam drew in a shuddering breath. "I know." 

Dean nodded a second time. "My true form was probably hideous." Sam gave a shaky laugh, raking the fingers of his good hand through his hair. 

"Uh, fellas?" The reaper suddenly said, making them both jump and turn their heads towards him. "This's been real cute and all, but I've got another appointment incoming, so we kinda need to speed it up here. Either one of you offs the other in the next three minutes, or I do the honors myself based on the judgment I've made." 

"Nah, we can handle it, Jeeves," Dean said, waving his hand dismissively. He then picked up the hammer and closed Sam's palm around it. "C'mon, Sammy." Sam hesitated. "Dean, are you. Are you sure you don't--" 

"I'm sure. And," He sighed, paused for a second before meeting Sam's eyes and saying, "I'm really sorry." Sam scrubbed away the wetness on his face and steadied the hammer, steeled himself. 

"Goodbye, Dean." 

He swung his arm, and Dean was knocked off his feet, blood arcing through the air dramatically. The room around them wavered and faded to black, and a tinny voice in Sam's ear chimed, "Please hold," right before he went under. 

When he woke up, he saw fireworks, exploding overhead in a myriad of different colors, and an echo of a much younger Dean, running through an empty field with his arms outstretched. 

**Author's Note:**

> Other titles I was considering for this fic included "Unmediated Resonance", "Joint Ventures", "Death Billiards", "Co-Dependents Anonymous", "Misdiagnosis", "Anima Sola", and "Emotional Contagion". I decided to just go for the obvious choice, instead. Though I might end up using a couple of those titles for stories I write in the future. 
> 
> The scenario for this fic was loosely based on the first episode of the anime "Death Parade".


End file.
